NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine said this week if Democrats take control of one or both houses of Congress in the midterm elections, they should focus less on investigating President Donald Trump and more on passing important legislation.

Kaine told students at Christopher Newport University on Labor Day that it’s highly likely the Democrats will take the House of Representatives in November, and that the odds are getting better that they capture the Senate.

If that happens, the senator said House and Senate committees will be right to “put some facts out on the table” and hold hearings on Trump “padding his own pocket” in office and “some of the ethical issues with some of the folks in the Cabinet.”

“But I think my pitch to my colleagues is going to be that we will make a big mistake if this is just going to be about investigations and starting an impeachment,” Kaine said. “We will make a big mistake if we don’t try to pass legislation — and put it on his desk — that would be good for the American public.”

In Trump’s first term, Kaine noted, the president signed into law some legislation the senator worked on for years — such as a 2018 measure to get Virginia indigenous tribes federally recognized and another to raise the legal age to buy tobacco from 18 to 21.

“If you put a bill on his desk, there’s a good chance that he’s going to want to sign it and take credit for it, which is great,” Kaine said. “We can do great things together … We should put a lot of bills on his desk that are commonsensical.

“I’m gonna certainly be urging my colleagues that if you want to issue subpoenas to uncover corruption and stuff, OK, fine — but let’s not waste time with an impeachment that’s going nowhere.”

Kaine and his wife, Anne Holton, came to CNU for a series of holiday events.

First, they attended a “Pizza, Politics & Perspectives” event, which was attended by about 500 students in a packed house in the ballroom of the David Student Union. Then they attended a discussion with a Business Law class.

Both discussions were emceed by retired Virginia Supreme Court Justice William Mims, who teaches classes and advises students in CNU’s pre-law program.

Kaine then visited a new drone and robotics lab in CNU’s Science and Engineering Research Center.

Kaine has served as U.S. senator since 2013 and was Hillary Clinton’s running mate in 2016. Holton, the daughter of a former Gov. Lindwood Holton, is a former judge and Virginia Secretary of Education.

But she joked that she has typically been Kaine’s “plus one” until now — he’s knocking on doors and helping her run for a seat on the Richmond School Board.

Also during Monday’s conversations, Kaine told the students he could support scrapping the lifetime tenure for federal judges in favor of an 18-year limit.

“I can support that as long as the term was long enough that it extended through multiple presidential terms,” Kaine said.

Now in his third Senate term, Kaine stopped short of advocating for term limits for senators and representatives.

“If you put term limits on the legislators, the continuity is the lobbyist,” Kaine said. “You end up with a body of expertise really being held by folks who are not elected officials.”

But he also advocated that the U.S. Supreme Court adopt established ethical guidelines, after reporting in recent years about justices not recusing themselves from cases.

“The Supreme Court should not have a lower ethical standard than the Traffic Division of the Richmond General District Court,” Kaine quipped. “I’m not saying they have a low ethical standard. I’m saying they have no ethical standard.”

Though judges all over the country recuse themselves from cases when they have a conflict of interest, Kaine said, “that doesn’t happen with the U.S. Supreme Court.”

The problem, he said, is that if a justice recuses form a nine-member court, a 4-4 tie could result. Kaine advocated the court adopting aid there needs to be some kind of formal mechanism — such as retired justices or appeals court judges appointed to such cases

On growing concerns over artificial intelligence, Kaine said he worried that people’s learning — and thinking — is being compromised by computer systems.

“The ability to undermine people’s critical thinking skills is very worrisome,” Kaine said of AI.

Kaine predicted that AI won’t eliminate jobs at the top — “the ones that really require a sense of understanding of human motivation and reading personalities and trying to lead.”

But “it might wipe out the lower-level jobs on the ladder,” he told students. “So that’s something we really have to grapple with. What to do if AI wipes out entry-level jobs.”

Kaine also spoke highly of instituting a national service requirement for young people to serve their country for a few years — which could either be with the military or groups such as the AmeriCorps.

“I’m not yet at the point where I want to make that a mandate,” he said. But a young person having a couple years of responsibility to the country would introduce them to personal connections and ideas that could last a lifetime.

Kaine also spoke of his recurring theme that Congress should not cede to the president its constitutional power to declare war.

Kaine has made the issue an area of focus over several administrations — often forcing congressional votes on the issue. That includes forcing a vote on U.S. military action in Iran, which Kaine contends is “an illegal war.”

“I think the separation of powers really is not working the way that the framers intended for it to, and I put most of the blame not on the president but on Congress,” Kaine told the students.

“Fifteen years after the Constitution was ratified, Kaine said, James Madison wrote to Thomas Jefferson explaining that the executive is most prone to making war, which is why the power to declare war was vested in the legislative branch.”

“They did something that hadn’t been done in the world,” Kaine said. “They made war a legislative function.”

“But from the very beginning, within five years after that, Congress was backing away and allowing the president – ‘Well, go ahead and start it. You know, if it goes bad, we’ll say we were against it. If it goes well, we’ll say we were with you all along.”

“But from the very beginning, within five years after that, Congress was backing away and allowing the president – ‘Well, go ahead and start it. You know, if it goes bad, we’ll say we were against it. If it goes well, we’ll say we were with you all along.’

But Kaine also urged the students to think positively in life rather than being “cynical pessimists.” If you’re a pessimist about a tough problem, he said, “you quit listening for the answer and won’t find it.”

“But there’s always an answer,” Kaine said. And if you’re an optimist and are a good listener, “you’ll find it.”

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